Sharon Death Wish: Once 'Fringe," Now Acceptable? Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a July 2005 WorldNetDaily article, Aaron Klein reported on a group of what he called "fringe activists" who were "calling for angels of death to kill Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and thwart his Gaza withdrawal plan." Klein took great pains to paint anyone involved in the ceremony as "fringe," adding at one point:
Participants in the ceremony are not mainstream leaders in the anti-withdrawal campaign, which distanced itself from the Pulsa Dinura [ceremony, in which "God is asked to curse a sinner, usually an enemy of the Jewish people"]. Some participants have previously been accused of serving as provocateurs and damaging the settlement cause.
But WND has been quite slow to criticize Pat Robertson for suggesting that Sharon's massive stroke was a retaliation from God because Sharon allegedly was"dividing God's land." In fact, a Jan. 6 WND online poll shows that a majority of WND readers appear to have no problem with Robertson's statement.
Why is WND so squeamish about the Sharon death wish but not about Robertson's claim of divine retribution?
Klein Hides Background of Violent Extremists -- Again Topic: WorldNetDaily Bartholomew notes that WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein is again covering up the background of the Israeli right-wing extremists he interviews. It turns out that the "northern Samaria resident” Klein quoted in a Jan. 6 WND article as advocating the creation of an "autonomous Jewish entity" in Judea and Samaria (as Klein insists on calling it; it's better known to the rest of the world as the West Bank) is actually a terrorist and former leader of the extremist Kach/Kahane Chai movement, responsible for the deaths of numerous people.
Still Hiding the Truth Topic: WorldNetDaily
The question was not whether WorldNetDaily and NewsMax would run stories on Hillary Clinton's campaign paying a $35,000 fine for underreporting in-kind contributions from a 2000 fund-raiser. The question was whether they would continue their longstanding policy of refusing to report on the long criminal record of Hillary's main accuser in this case, Peter Paul.
They did. Nary a word about Paul's list of previous felonies or the fact that he's awaiting sentencing on yet another felony graces either article.
CNS Press Release Journalism Watch Topic: CNSNews.com
A Jan. 5 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones regurgitates a press release from STOPP International -- which claims as its mission: "We intend to cause such discontent with Planned Parenthood programs that it will have no choice but to close its doors and get out of town!" -- claiming that "the abortion chain works hard to prevent and limit the births of minority children."
Jones' idea of "balance" was to copy a couple sentences from Planned Parenthood's website. No apparent attempt was made by Jones to contact Planned Parenthood for a specific response to STOPP's allegations.
NewsBusters Stenography Topic: Media Research Center
A Jan. 4 NewsBusters post by Lisa Fabrizio does a fine job of regurgitating a National Republican Senatorial Committee list of "Senate Democrats who’ve accepted cash from [Jack] Abramoff and/or his clients." But that's not quite true; as the Hotline blog points out, Abramoff himself donated only to Republicans, not any of the Democrats on the list. Additionally, some of the money claimed to have been donated by Abramoff's "clients" was actually donated by the political action committee of the company Abramoff worked for, Greenberg Traurig -- described by Hotline as "a huge bipartisan legal/lobby firm" -- and neither the NRSC nor Fabrizio offer any evidence that Abramoff had a hand in those donations.
UPDATE: NewsBusters' MRC stablemates at CNSNews.com also regurgitate the NRSC release in a Jan. 5 article by Melanie Hunter, who also fails to note that none of that money came from Abramoff himself.
Didn't WND Get the Press Release? Topic: WorldNetDaily
While WorldNetDaily has more than 400 articles in its archive mentioning Terri Schiavo and the battle over her life, it has yet to do an original article on the case of Tirhas Habtegiris, a 27-year-old cancer patient at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano, Texas, who was removed from her ventilator last month because she couldn't pay her medical bills. She died 15 minutes later.
Helloooo? Diana Lynne? Randall Terry? Isn't this case good enough for you to pimp? Wasn't her life worth saving?
AIM vs. Soros Topic: Accuracy in Media
A Jan. 2 Accuracy in Media column by Cliff Kincaid rants against George Soros, claiming that, among other things. "Soros has put some of his massive fortune into press groups like Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE), the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and Center for Investigative Reporting." Conspicuously absent from Kincaid's column is any mention of Richard Mellon Scaife, the conservative moneybags who put some of his massive fortune into organizations such as the American Spectator and, um, Accuracy in Media.
UPDATE: AIM issued a press release condensing Kincaid's column -- and again failing to mention the millions AIM has received from Scaife.
WND Lies About Itself Yet Again Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Jan. 4 WorldNetDaily article states that "In its News and Media category, Alexa shows WND at No. 1 again this year as it was in 2004." But the Alexa link clearly shows that this is for the Politics > Conservatism > News and Media category.
NewsMax's New Anti-Hillary Topic: Newsmax
Eight minutes after posting a Jan. 3 article claiming that Nixon son-in-law Ed Cox would not run against Hillary Clinton for her New York Senate seat, NewsMax used another article to anoint former Yonkers mayor James Spencer as "Republican frontrunner in the race to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate." This comes a couple weeks after Jeanine Pirro's NewsMax-fluffed campaign against Hillary imploded.
In Spencer, NewsMax has something it really didn't have with Pirro -- a veritable font of anti-Clinton comments:
And unlike Mrs. Pirro - who, during her four month campaign, seldom criticized Mrs. Clinton for anything beyond her presidential ambitions - Spencer made it clear he doesn't intend to pull any punches, especially when it comes to the former first couple's failures in the war on terror.
Look for NewsMax to repeat every Hillary-bashing word Spencer spouts, no matter how inaccurate. For instance, in this article NewsMax quotes Spencer as criticizing Clinton deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick, "who erected the notorious 'wall of separation' that prevented intelligence agencies from sharing information with law enforcement"; Spencer adds the alleged wall "shows they were trying to apply that silly, appeasing, liberal mentality that also made our intelligence agents abroad check back with the pinheads in Washington before they could take any action." Of course, as we've notedeverytime NewsMax makes this claim, Gorelick didn't erect that "wall."
Stuff We Missed Topic: Media Research Center
A couple things that we overlooked while away from home base for the holidays:
-- A Jan. 3 MRC CyberAlert by Brent Baker (repeating a Dec. 21 NewsBusters post) praised CBS for quoting Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman as taking the Bush administration's position on the Bush administration's domestic spying without a warrant -- that is, that "the program is essential to U.S. national security" and that the disclosure of the possibly illegal spying "has damaged critical intelligence capabilities." But Media Matters notes that Harman also said something that CBS (and Baker) didn't report: "Like many Americans, I am deeply concerned by reports that this program in fact goes far beyond the measures to target Al Qaeda about which I was briefed."
-- Mithridate Ombud responded to our post about his/her post touting the UCLA study purportedly conclusively proving liberal media bias. He/she asks: "So you're saying that someone who was or is a conservative can't possibly conduct a study on anything that examines bias in the media? ... And by that logic, wouldn't it be fair to say that liberals can't report news fairly?" Well, Mr/Ms. Ombud, you and other conservatives already assume that "liberals can't report news fairly," so you also have to presume that conservatives can't be fair journalists either (which I demonstrate here on a regular basis). As long as you push the idea of your ideological opposites being biased, you open the door to the idea of your side being biased as well. Admit that conservative journalists are as biased as the liberal journalists you love to condemn, Mr/Ms. Ombud, and we'll have gotten somewhere.
Misleading Poll Touted Topic: Media Research Center
A Jan. 3 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard touts a Rasmussen Reports poll that found that “Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States" as an example of how "the nation doesn’t feel the Bush administration is doing anything wrong." A Dec. 28 NewsBusters post by John Armor touted the poll as well, as did a Dec. 28 WorldNetDaily article.
But the poll question apparently (based on this article; you have to pay to see the actual poll data) failed to point out one important aspect of this program: The intercepts are conducted without warrants or any apparent court oversight. Putting that in the question would likely produce a different result.
Sheppard is a frequent promoter of conservative-leaning Rasmussen polls.
Non-Disclosure Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
Thus far, WorldNetDaily has run a Jan. 2 article and a Jan. 3 column by Jack Cashill promoting Joel Miller's new book, "Size Matters: How Big Government Puts the Squeeze on America's Families, Finances, and Freedom." Nowhere is it disclosed that Miller is a former WorldNetDaily editor and that his publisher, Thomas Nelson, is a former business partner with WND in its WND Books imprint. (After the partnership ended, Thomas Nelson continued the division under the Nelson Current imprint -- of which Miller is senior editor -- while WND found a new co-publisher for the WND Books imprint, Cumberland House.)
Downplaying Domestic Terrorism Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a Jan. 2 WorldNetDaily column, WND editor Joseph Farah accuses the media of downplaying reports of alleged domestic terrorism. He lists examples of what he calls "law enforcement officials and the press establishment going out of their way to downplay even the possibility of terrorism."
Conspicuously missing from Farah's list is the case of William Krar of Tyler, Texas, who Ain 2003 was found in possession of nearly two pounds of a cyanide compound and other chemicals that could create enough poisonous gas to kill everyone inside a space as large as a big-chain bookstore or a small-town civic center. Authorities also discovered nearly half a million rounds of ammunition, more than 60 pipe bombs, machine guns, silencers and remote-controlled bombs disguised as briefcases, plus pamphlets on how to make chemical weapons, and anti-Semitic, anti-black and anti-government books.
Yet WND has run only one original article on Krar, a December 2003 article following Krar's arrest -- but nothing since. Why hasn't WND focused on this case?
Perhaps because it couldn't find a Muslim connection. WND apparently believes that only Muslims are terrorists and that any Muslim who commits an act of violence is therefore, by definition, a terrorist. In his column, Farah states:
I recall how any possibility that the Beltway sniper attacks were connected with terrorism was dismissed. It turned out they were carried out by two Muslims.
Farah implies that the sniper attacks were terrorism simply because John Allan Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were Muslims, an accusation he has made before (as ConWebWatch has noted). But Muhammad and Malvo weren't Islamic terrorists; their motivation was apparently money and revenge.
But as we've noted, if WND can't demonize Muslims, it will lose interest in a story.
WND also sympathizes with at least some of Krar's views. The WND article on Krar notes that he "has not paid taxes since 1988." WND regularlyreports the stories of people who believe that paying income tax is voluntary and not mandatory or who consider the refusal to pay taxes a legitimate form of protest.
Kincaid's Gay Obsession Watch Topic: Accuracy in Media
As we somehow knew he would, Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid weighs in on "Brokeback Mountain" in a Jan. 2 column. Kincaid establishes the column's tone in the first sentence: "The media are showing their pro-homosexual bias with their excessive coverage of the 'Cowboy Sweethearts' movie, Brokeback Mountain." He adds that the movie is "another breakthrough for the homosexual lobby, which still manages to transform their deadly and dangerous lifestyle into something considered mainstream and even attractive."
Then and Now Topic: Newsmax
In a series of bizarre comments that show the depth of the failed thinking at the nation's premier intelligence service, the former head of the CIA unit charged with capturing or killing Osama bin Laden said on Sunday that the terror mastermind was a "remarkable," "great" and "admirable" man.
"He's really a remarkable man," former CIA agent Michael Scheuer told NBC's "Meet the Press."
The man who ran the Central Intelligence Agency's Bin Laden desk during the 1990s is accusing President Clinton of giving the CIA carte blanche to circumvent U.S. law and interrogate terrorist suspects in any way the agency saw fit - a directive that led to the establishment of secret CIA prisons on foreign soil.
"We asked the president what we should do with the people we capture," recalled Michael Scheuer, who headed up the agency's Bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, in an interview Wednesday with the German newsmagazine Die Zeit.
